Time Crisis for Playstation

The crime organization Wild Dog has kidnapped Rachel, the daughter of the President of the Republic of Sercia. The government of Sercia has enlisted VSSE to save Rachel. VSSE sends Richard Miller (the player) to rescue her by single-handedly shooting his way through hundreds of enemies to do so.

Epilepsy/Seizure Warning This run contains a lot of light flashes. If you are sensitive to such things...you've been warned.

Temp Encode

Sorry for the low quality...I didn't have the drive space necessary to dump an uncompressed version.

Game objectives

TAS Notes

Arcade Story mode is the same as the arcade version of the game....woah.

Special Mode is an additional mode in the PSX version that plays through a different story. The path taken on this mode will vary based on efficiency of play.

This run was played using Gamepad input. Though designed to be played with a GunCon, BizHawk doesn't currently support this input method.

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1:

Area 1 - Straightforward blasting. The final screen contains an explosive box that will kill all enemies at once, but this takes longer than just killing the men normally due to the animation of the forklift collapsing.

Area 2 - Nothing Special. Just shooting.

Area 3 - The car that tries to run you over is shot to make it crash. This is faster because dodging the car requires you to fight one more enemy after dodging. The scene after dodging the car contains an explosive box that is this time used to kill everyone faster.

Boss - MOZ: Easy fight, hit the orange ninja-like guy (Moz) three times. You have to wait for him to leave the screen and return in between shots. Killing all the other ninja-like guys is necessary to bring Moz back faster.

Stage 2:

Area 1: Another option to kill everyone at once is available here by shooting the banding holding up the iron girders on the last screen of this area. Again, though, the animation to do so takes longer than just killing everyone normally.

Area 2: Nothing special

Area 3: Nothing Special

Boss - Sherudo Garo: This guy normally throws knives at you...he doesn't get a chance here. Again only one shot is allowed per appearance and killing the other enemies brings Garo back faster.

Stage 3

Area 1: The biggest single loss of time happens here. At the area where the turret gunner is attacking from the top of the tower, gamepad inputs do not allow for precise enough targeting to hit him until he leaves the turret. With a GunCon, he can be hit between the shields of the turret; which would majorly speed up this section. Since I can't shoot him, I use single frame dodges to avoid being hit by his shots. These are barely perceivable movements at normal speed.

Area 2: Nothing Special

Area 3: Moz returns in the middle of this section and is again a 3-shot kill with delays between shots.

Boss - Wild Dog: Pretty straightforward fight. As with the other bosses, he can only be hit once per appearance and the other enemies must be dealt with also.

Other comments

This is a Zero damage run (seen on the ranking screen post-credits). I doubt taking damage anywhere would speed up much.

Not obtaining 100% accuracy results from shooting the stuff (explosive boxes, grenades, etc.) that speeds up time, but doesn't count as enemy hits.

No extra shots were taken that weren't necessary. It's possible to shoot a single enemy multiple times, but is unnecessary.

A run could be done with 100% accuracy, but would be slower due to not using the quick kill method in Stage 1: Area 3 and having to wait on/dodge grenades instead of shoot them.

Improvements

Potential

Most enemies were shot on the first possible frame so the targeting dot could begin motion to the next enemy ASAP. As death animation varies on where they the enemy is hit, some deaths are faster than others. It's possible that I may have missed opportunities for faster death animations, but any of these would likely speed things up only if it's the last one or two guys to die before moving to the next screen/enemy sequence. This would also probably be limited to a handful of seconds over the course of the run.

Expected

GunCon support would drastically improve this run.

Moving from one target to the next could be instantaneous instead of requiring the time to sweep the blue dot across the screen from one enemy to the next.

It would also allow for more precise targeting of enemies. This would yield more control over death animations as well as rectifying the problem mentioned above with the turret gunner. There are a few other areas where enemies could be hit slightly faster as well instead of waiting for them to move a few pixels one way or another.

Note on publication (if accepted)

The credits roll after killing Wild Dog. However, following the credits is a final screen with ranking and opportunity to enter initials. For the encode, I would recommend a dump that has the inputs necessary to enter TAS for initials. Only after the high score table does the "The End" screen display. Here's a .bk2 file with this added (additionally, the blue dot is moved out of the way during the credits).

Final note: If it is deemed that the high score input is necessary for the timing of the run (as opposed to input ending on the last shot of Wild Dog) it will add 13,200 frames.